Is There a Jason Garrett Compromise In the Works?
By Liam McKeone
It has been five days since the end of the NFL regular season. Depending on your fandom and/or your job, it's also Day 5 of Jason Garrett Watch down in Dallas. Just about everyone expected Garrett to be let go after the Cowboys failed to reach the playoffs in his ninth full year at the helm despite a very weak division and an immense amount of offensive talent. Yet here we are, still waiting for any kind of news regarding his fate as Garrett will reportedly meet with the Jones family for the third time during this stretch.
From the outside, it's hard to understand the holdup. Garrett seems like a good guy and isn't completely inept as a head coach, but the team clearly needs a change after underperforming yet again. Despite all evidence pointing to this being the right decision, Jerry Jones seems quite reluctant to pull the trigger on Garrett's dismissal. Garrett has always been Jones' guy, going all the way back to when Garrett sat in on coach's meetings as a backup for Dallas, paving the way to his hiring as offensive coordinator and eventual promotion to head coach. Jones has to know he'd be blasted for keeping Garrett, but so far can't bring himself to get rid of him. But there could be a compromise on the table.
Keeping Garrett on the staff of whatever new coach comes to town obviously isn't an option. But what if Jones brought Garrett up to the front office in some kind of football operations position? It would let Jones keep Garrett around without admitting that he was a total failure as the owner's personally-groomed head coach without the criticism that would come with keeping him as a coach. It's hard to say how much input Garrett has had in personnel decisions during his tenure without being in the building, but it's not unreasonable to assume that he was at least consulted by the Jones family in some way; without an official general manager, it's always been up to the Jones' to make the personnel decisions, and they obviously value Garrett and his opinions.
Now, if you were a potential head coach and knew the man who previously held the position both holds sway with the owners and has a say in how your team is constructed, how would you feel? Probably not great! But any candidate knows what he's signing up for when it comes to working with the Jones clan, and keeping Garrett around probably wouldn't alter the equation that much. It's not exactly a win-win for Dallas, but it's better than teetering on the edge of making any kind of decision like they have been this week.